I hired a developer to create a website for me from 5er who was very well reviewed. In the initial project brief they said they would be able to complete the project in 2 weeks but it has since been 4 months and the website is still not finished.
Whilst the website looks great, I (with no previous experience on WordPress) had to learn large elements of it and do a lot of the groundwork on the website myself because the developers pace was so awful.
When I’ve sat down for 1 on 1 sessions w them we’ve quickly progressed through issues. Wheras left to their own devices they’ve gone weeks without any progress. And I estimate if they’d worked on it regularly the project could have been finished in 2-3 weeks.
Given how long it’s taken, I’m worried they will bill me for more hours even though they haven’t been working on it in that time.
They’ve asked me to record a video of me giving a positive review as collateral and are being overall very suspicious. I’m happy to give them a positive review to end this whole thing and pay what was initially agreed on (no overtime payments), but I’m worried about them holding the website for ransom (I’ve got little reason to trust them so far).
After all the time (and work I personally have done on the site), is there anything I can do to download the website offline before they ransom/delete it out of malice if I refuse to pay extra? Frankly I have almost done more work on it than they have.
I’ve got access to the dashboard but the site is in their name.
TLDR – have a suspicious + lazy developer who might hold site to ransom, any options?
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Never use 5’er…. Hire someone local for Pete’s sake.
Depends on what level of access you have – if you have an administrator account you can easily install a backup plugin and pull everything. If not, then you might be stuck doing copy/paste work to a new site (which might not be a bad idea at this point anyway if they have the control to suddenly take it offline).
If you have admin access to the admin dashboard you can install a plugin like UpdraftPlus and download a full backup of your site. You can then restore it elsewhere and be done with the developers.
If they have given you access to a hosting control panel like cPanel or DirectAdmin you can retrieve the site that way by downloading the entire wp-content folder and using phpMyadmin to export your database.
Without that access your only hope might be lodging a complaint with Fiverr. If you have correspondence from them requesting a video review as collateral then I can see Fiverr coming down hard on them. And if they rely on Fiverr for business then there’s a good chance that they will quickly complete the project or hand over all the work done so far to you.
Backup site.
https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/security/backup/
Take a back up and move the site.
Don’t use Fiverr.
Find someone you trust.
Sometimes you just get what you pay for. There are so many WordPress developers out there. Most cities and even some of the small towns have WordPress Meetup groups where you can literally meet local people to hire. Why would you ever use Fivr? I get that it costs less, but then you are stuck with the concerns that you have shared here.
My advice is if you have admin access. Install a plug-in like Updraft, make a backup of the site and the settings. Download the site and use it elsewhere. If you own the domain and it is in your name, I’d transfer it to your own host like Hostinger or Flywheel. And then hire someone locally.
make a backup of the site and please choose sellers carefully on fiverr.
or just transfer the site to a new domain immediately and surprise that sh** person
Easy, login, use MigrateGuru, move the site elsewhere. Bish bash bosh job done. Remove the migrateguru plugin they’ll be none the wiser.